Thursday, June 26, the day before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due in Riyadh, King Abdullah summoned a National Security Council meeting “upon the current security events in the region, especially in Iraq,” and ordered “all necessary measures to protect the kingdom against terrorist threats.” The Saudi military has been mobilized and placed on high preparedness, after royal reconnaissance flights discovered Iraqi Al Qaeda-linked Sunni fighters (ISIS) heading for the Saudi border to seize the Ar Ar crossing. debkafile: Egyptian commandos are about to fly out to bolster Saudi border defenses.

Two high-ranking US officials, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, were challenged by Israeli leaders over the Obama administration’s omission of the Shahab-3 ballistic missile from its demand to restrict ICBMs that can reach Europe and the US in Iran’s arsenal. The Shahab-3’s range of 2,100km covers all of the Middle East, including Israel. Yet it was left out, although it carries warheads weighing 760 kg, to 1.1 tons, which may also be nuclear. Hagel faced the same challenge from Saudi Arabia and the GCC.

Iran and the six world powers Tuesday, April 8, kicked off negotiations in Vienna for a final and comprehensive nuclear accord. debkafile reports that in its haste to start drafting the document by mid-May, the Obama administration is ignoring the military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. A senior Israeli security official remarked: “The Americans are ready to take Tehran’s assurance that its program is purely peaceful at face value.” The initial US-Iranian argument over the quantity of low-grade enriched uranium permissible is irrelevant given the fissile material concealed in Tehran’s weapons program.

Two Syrian rebel militias judged moderate in Washington have in the last few days taken delivery and begun using the first advanced US weapon to be deployed in more than three years of civil war, debkafile reveals. It is the heavy anti-tank, optically-tracked, wire-guided BGM-71 TOW.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has proved time and again that he will never endorse any accord for ending the dispute with Israel. US Secretary of State John Kerry has finally accepted this. An interim deal, which he refused to consider, might buy a few years’ grace in the dispute before breaking up, because it is the conflict that keeps Abbas in power. debkafile: Some Palestinian eyes are looking at the Saudi-UAE-Egyptian bloc and its war on the Muslim Brotherhood i.e. Hamas, which the US opposes. Israel too is seriously interested.

President Barack Obama is determined to discontinue America’s drone operations against al Qaeda along with its disengagement from Afghanistan and Pakistan. But, as DEBKA Weekly reveals in its latest issue out last Friday, the drones will keep coming – with three major differences: This time, the jihadists will be hunted down in their latest Middle East habitats of Syria, Iraq and Egypt by the only regional powers with UAV capabilities: Saudi Arabia and Israel. And this time no Americans are involved. To track this drone-versus-terror offensive, subscribe to DEBKA Weekly by clicking here.

The Arab League summit opening in Kuwait Tuesday, March 25, is set to carry hard-line ultimatums as a means of derailing US-sponsored Palestinian-Israeli talks and as a red flag for President Barack Obama three days before he lands in Riyadh. debkafile: They will insist on a veto on recognizing Israel as the Jewish national state, mandating all parts of East Jerusalem, including Al Quds al Sharif (Temple Mount) and the entire Old City of Jerusalem, as the capital of a Palestinian state; and the immediate release of all Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Pakistan refused to heed Obama’s demands to back of its nuclear pact with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis will be more flexible on non-nuclear issues like Syria in order to repair the fraught relations with Washington.

Saudi Intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan was reported by debkafile’s US and Saudi sources Wednesday, Feb. 19, to have been removed from policy-making in Riyadh. The prince was the live wire of kingdom’s drive against President Barack Obama’s détente with Tehran. Bandar’s removal is one up for Obama, and a significant loss for Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu as the only other Middle East leader ready to publicly decry US policies on Iran and Syria. No word about the prince’s status has come from Riyadh since he dropped out of sight a month ago.

Saudi spy chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan may be taking a fresh, pragmatic look at Tehran, newly promoted by the US and Russia, as senior regional power, as he plans a trip to Washington for possible fence-mending talks.

Tehran wins two key Gulf emirates away from their close alignment with Saudi Arabia by two steps: Its consent to discuss the future of three islands claimed by the UAE in the Strait of Hormuz; and the conspicuous absence of Oman’s Sultan Qaboos from the GCC summit in Kuwait this week. The Saudis were prevented from passing anti-Iranian measures, which must be unanimous under GCC rules, and were therefore isolated. The Obama administration’s silence – even when Iran posted assault aircraft on a Hormuz island – resounded across the region.

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency “reveals” that Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Mossad are “co-conspiring to produce a computer worm more destructive than the Stuxnet malware to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.” It claims that Saudi intelligence director Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and Israel’s Mossad chief Tamir Pardo met in Vienna to decide on the virus attack on Nov. 24, shortly after the six world powers signed their first interim nuclear agreement with Iran in Geneva, and that a week earlier, Prince Bandar visited Israel secretly with French President Francois Hollande.